The Miraculous Naming (Pascha, Easter Sunday)

At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

  He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

   Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

  Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

   She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. - John 20.14 - 17

Today, the Risen One appears, glorious in the Resurrected Life. Today, He tramples down death by death  and wins for us the victory over the grave. Today, dear friends, He brings us new life!

And as we sit in our pews and around our dinner tables, as we smooth our ties and skirts, as we shuffle feet in their new sandals and clink our wine glasses - He calls us each by name. Today, as we celebrate, the Good Shepherd whispers into our hearts that He knows us. That He recognizes us in this bright new life. He names us - and the naming is the life.

Mary did not recognize Jesus when he found her. And it is a finding - he meets her, he encounters her. She is weeping for the loss, for the promise she believes has been broken by death. Where have they taken him? She wonders to the angels. I imagine her searching, anxious, looking in every direction while tears stream down her face and her hands knead into each other. Where have they taken him? Where is Jesus? 

And He comes to her. In that deep moment, the mystery shakes the universe. Just when we most believe that he is gone, he comes to us. Just at the moment I bring my eyes to the icon of Christ in blessing at the right side of the altar, in McComb, Mississippi, in the small Orthodox church? Just at the moment when I most believe I will never belong, He looks back at me. He comes to us. 

Jesus said to her, Mary. Jesus says to me, Hilary. 

And we turn, Mary and I, crying, "Rabboni!" "Teacher!" And we cry out in joy and fear and trembling. We fall to our knees at the sight of him. Because He names us. Because He knows us. Because He comes to us. 

And today, with Mary, I cry out to you: I have seen the Lord! 

And He has given me life. 

And the most blessed Pascha to you. 

Love,

Hilary

The Unseen Love (Palm Sunday)

It is Palm Sunday - the Sunday of the Passion. It is the moment we in the Church reenter an old story, a story we know almost too well. Today we ride with Jesus into Jerusalem on a donkey. Today we lay palm branches, new and soft and green, at his feet.

But today we read the story aloud. We hold old copies of the script on red or pink photocopy paper, each whispering or shouting the old words. And then we all shout, one huge crowd in the red church: Crucify him! Crucify him! Because the One we hail is also the One we reject. The man who in one moment we call King, the next moment we send to a cross with a vengeance.

Sometimes I forget that I am that kind of hypocrite in my own life, too. I hear it on Palm Sunday in my neat Sunday best, hair wavy, not one thing out of place. I hear it echo through the Church, that we are hypocrites in the story. But I say, "that's so long ago." I say, "that's a part of the story from then, not now." I say, almost gleeful to myself, "I am so glad I'm not like that."

But this week, friends, this week Jesus Himself appeared, the heartbeat and the reminder. This week, as I rest my bare feet against the leather couches, or when I laughed skeptically at an idea, or when I stayed silent in a class when I could have spoken out for faith... the One I hail is the One I rejected. 


And He looks at me now, on Sunday morning, from the icon of the Christ of Mount Sinai. He looks at me, so knowing and so righteous, so filled with judgment and so filled with grace I can't keep looking at him. Palm Sunday is the Sunday of the King of the Jews, but it is also the Sunday where the grace of Christ goes forth, hidden underneath our hypocrisy. It is the Sunday where His love begins its journey to the Cross and we hail him in one breath and deny him the next.

And this week I let that grace go forth, without thanksgiving. This week, I sang with palm branches in one moment, and hoped that God really wouldn't notice or care that I said that horrible, mean, ungrateful thing that same day.

But the arms of Jesus are strong and mighty to save. They are mighty to save not just from death, but they are mighty to save us from hypocrisy. They are mighty to set our faces towards the Cross. They are mighty to shake us awake from our deceit.

This Holy Week, I pray He might shake us all awake from deceit, that we might recognize His unseen love. That we might set our faces to the Cross, knowing that to walk it with Him is to truly know life. I pray He might bend our hearts until they burst with His grace for this world, and that we might know forevermore that He draws the world unto Himself. 


Can we pray together, that His grace might overcome our blindness?

Almighty and everliving God, who, of thy tender love
towards mankind, hast sent thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ
to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the
cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his
great humility: Mercifully grant that we may both follow the
example of his patience, and also be make partakers of his
resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who
liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God,
for ever and ever. Amen.


Love,
Hilary

The Sweetest Word (For Pascha, Easter Sunday)

Alleluia. All Lent, we have hidden this word from our liturgy in the Anglican Church. We have thanked God, cried Hosanna, prayed for mercy and forgiveness. In the solemn devotions before the Cross on Good Friday, we weep with the women as we watch the body of our Lord laid in the tomb. 

We have hidden Alleluia in the grave clothes and placed Alleluia on the Cross. On Good Friday we prayed this collect:

 Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, we pray you to set

your passion, cross, and death between your judgment and
our souls, now and in the hour of our death. Give mercy and
grace to the living; pardon and rest to the dead; to your holy
Church peace and concord; and to us sinners everlasting life
and glory; for with the Father and the Holy Spirit you
live and reign, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

We pray that the Cross would stand between our soul and judgment, that we would be covered in His blood, that we would know mercy and grace and everlasting life. Our prayers have been clinging to the Cross, to the act of love and sacrifice, to the moment of light in darkness. And with Mary and the women, we have gone to the tomb without an Alleluia, without the exclamation of Easter hope. 

And this morning I stand with Mary at the tomb, distraught at the mystery. How devastating it must have been! All the promises of eternal life and all the hope of glorious Alleluias, and she can't stop crying, because she cannot find him. Where has God gone? The sun has risen and the tomb is empty. Where is Jesus? 

"Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
   “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
  He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
   Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
  Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
   She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”)."

(John 20. 11-16)

The sweetest word - Mary - is the moment of recognition. She must have fallen over, stumbled on the realization of the greater mystery. The Lord, who journeyed to the cross and into death, who collapsed into death so that we might live again - He stands before her, alive. And tenderly, He calls her name, Mary. Can you hear Him call your name too? Hilary, He says. And the sweetest word - Alleluia - can ring clear into the sunrise, into the new day. 

Today with Mary, we turn our weeping into the cry of recognition, into the cry of Easter praise. Because behold, it is Jesus! 

Sing the Alleluia with me in the bright beams of this morning. 

Love,

Hilary

O God, who for our redemption didst give thine
only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his
glorious resurrection hast delivered us from the power of
our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may
evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through
Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth
with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

The Light of Christ (For The Great Vigil of Easter)

Tonight, after a day without Internet, without phone (I turned it off for the day to focus on the other things, the things that take a deeper concentration) - we gathered to shiver in the damp twilight. It was cloudy, the air heavy with the smell of water, and I stood next to my brothers as we waited. I could not see the fire lit, could not smell the sputtering smoke. 

And then I caught the first beautiful glimpse - flickering bright against the patchy darkness - we lit the Christ candle, the Paschal candle. And we followed it into the church, and the priest booms out in his loud voice to the world, "The light of Christ." And we repeat, straining forward, "Thanks be to God." 

What is it I am thankful for in the night before Easter? 

And the cantor stands there, his voice bearing to us the message of holiness. I listen close for the first time, my own voice somehow aching to sing with him: 

May the Morning Star which never sets

find this flame still burning:
Christ, that Morning Star,
who came back from the dead,
and shed his peaceful light on all mankind,
your Son, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Amen. 

I am thankful for the light that keeps burning even in the darkest hour, the Morning Star who burns still, the depth of the night, when it seems that all hope has been lost.  

It begins to become clear as we hear the baptismal vows and the mystery is whispered loud and glorious in the darkness. You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own forever. 

And I felt the tears come creeping into my eyes at that moment, because I realize that this is the thankfulness of waiting. I am marked and sealed. That water has been prayed and poured over my child-self, in a moment of bright mystery, and I do not understand but I breathe it. My feet quiver in their shoes. The night before Easter, I am thankful for the water of Baptism. The night before Easter, I am thankful for the light of Christ from that Paschal candle, lit all those many years ago, relit and relit at each moment of my growing up. The light of Christ. Thanks be to God. 

The lights burst forth at this moment in the service, and I can't seem to stop crying, because I see now the history of God's light that burns in the darkest hours and how He promised us light always. The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light. I see it burning near the altar, I see it burning in the joyful organ and the choir of voices and the peal of the bells. And trembling in the holy night, I see the Paschal candle lit in my own heart, marked and sealed as Christ's own forever. 

The light of Christ. Thanks be to God. 

Grant, O Lord, that all who are baptized into the death
of Jesus Christ your Son may live in the power of his
resurrection and look for him to come again in glory; who
lives and reigns now and forever. Amen.

The Hard Love (A Five Minute Post, for Good Friday)

Lisa-Jo invites me to write about the hard love with her in just five minutes - and today, on Good Friday, I hope I can be quiet with you.

The hard love is the moment after the loud cry. He gives up his spirit and the world hands in suspension, wondering if another gasping breath can be breathed on that cross, wondering if another shuddering cry will  slip out of his collapsing lungs. And the hard love comes in wrenching, gut twisting sobs from the foot of the cross where Mary and the women weep. Because they've been watching the dying and they know, they know that he is gone.

And the Resurrection is never harder to believe than the moment of this Love that shivers on the Cross emptied and dying. When the thief whispers, Remember me, O Lord, in your Kingdom it feels like a forgotten, desperate cry because how will Jesus who is dying remember anything? What is memory after death? But I sit today in the muddle and mess of my own heart, and I am crying out to Jesus - Remember me, O Lord, in your Kingdom.

Because the hard love holds me tight in his outstretched arms, embraces my scarred and knotted up self, the self who can't manage to breathe calm or peace, the self who is frantic to finish the week, the self who asks questions she can't answer (can anyone answer the question how do I live hoping in Him?). 

His love today stretches him out and pins him to the rough wood and it crucifies. And then the last breath and we begin to weep. Because it is that love that now holds me.

Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your
family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be
betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer
death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Love,

Hilary

Tenebrae (for Wednesday in Holy Week)

We weary ones on pilgrimage to Easter - tonight is a night of darkness. Tonight is the service of Tenebrae, which in Latin means "shadows." In it we think about the betrayal of Jesus by Judas, and the service sings the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and the Psalmody of Lauds and Matins.

After the second chant, there is this passage read responsively in the congregation:
Tristis est anima mea
My soul is very sorrowful, even to the point of death;
remain here and watch with me.
Now you shall see the crowd who will surround me;
you will flee, and I will go to be offered up for you.
V. Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
You will flee, and I will go to be offered up for you.

Behold, the hour is at hand. And then the words I hear as I contemplate the shadows that cover this week:
You will flee, and I will go to be offered up for you. 

When I was reading the passage in Matthew yesterday, after the disciples fall asleep, my eyes fastened onto the following verses (Matthew 26.47-56):

While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.
  Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.”
   Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
   “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?  But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”
  In that hour Jesus said to the crowd, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me. But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.

They fled. In French, it reads: Alors tous les disciples l'abandonnèrent, et prirent la fuite. The disciples abandoned him and took flight. They are on the run - clasping their sides with the ache of adrenaline. They could not run fast enough from that garden.

When I was little, and one of my siblings said something mean, or I got into a scuffle about sweaters or hairbrushes, or Mom didn't have time to check my math homework...I ran. Behind our house there is a shed where we keep old bikes and broken lawn mowers and clothes we've outgrown. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me behind that shed. Hot tears slipping down my face, I gasped for air and hide behind the shed, my skirt wet from sitting on the damp ground, my fingers tracing shapes and letters in the grass as I waited for the crying to subside.

(Photo: Mandie Sodoma)

I ran from the fighting itself, from the disturbance of the peace, from the plan overturned. I ran from what surprised me. I ran from what scared me. I ran from what upset me. And now I am back, little Hilary in the garden next to Jesus, and he is sorrowful unto death. The shadows are long tonight, and the kiss rings loudly as chaos and terror and death sweep into the cool night. 

And the candles on the altar tonight are twelve, leading up to the Christ candle. The service begins and they are all lit. One by one, they are extinguished. And they deserted him and fled.

But hidden in the midst of the readings and prayers is an antiphon that gives me hope: "Now the women sitting at the tomb made lamentation, weeping for the Lord."

There were some, the women, who did not flee. Who stayed to make lamentation. Who wept. Could I become like them? Could I learn to stand on my feeble legs in this garden full of shadows and make lamentation, weeping for the Lord? Could I, by Grace, hold fast to him in the night of darkness?

Pray with me (from the Book of Occasional Services and the Book of Common Prayer):

Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross.
---
O Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his back to
the smiters and hid not his face from shame: Give us grace
to take joyfully the sufferings of the present time, in full
assurance of the glory that shall be revealed; through the same
Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with
thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Glory in the Cross (For Tuesday in Holy Week)

(Photo: Hannah Cochran)

This morning I woke up early, to finish homework left undone from last night. My fingers meandered across the keyboard as the question - Who is man that thou art mindful of him? - and these words, imago Dei (image of God) echoed into the still room. As I typed, my toes wriggling a little from sleepy excitement for the topics in the paper (it really was fun to write, even that early), I heard a bird trill outside my window, startling me awake.

I cracked it open a little bit to let the birdsong and the sweet fresh air inside, and it was if I woke up from 100 years of sleeping, aching for the new day. The smell of rain and earth, the promise of spring, was beckoning and singing its way into my room. I was suddenly awake to the bigger moments of this week: the Resurrection and the Promises held in the darkness, the sky covered for those three hours.

I thought I was awake. I thought I was especially virtuous for being awake. But then these words dropped me to my knees.

"Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter." (Matthew 26.36-40) 

What a sleeper I have been these many weeks. He says, voice pouring out sorrow, Stay here and keep watch with me. He doesn't say die with me. He doesn't say run away with me. He doesn't say defend me or protect me. He says stay. He says keep watch with me.


And how often I sleep, waiting until the very late bloom of April is rushing into my window! How often I sleep, pretending I have all the time to join Him. How often I act as though He has asked the extraordinary, unbearable, unfathomable thing. As I preen my ruffled feathers, I hear myself saying, "How can God ask so much of me? He asks me to bear all this?" And then I sigh loud into the room and slump my shoulders and toss my mane of red-blond hair as if to say, "Well, then fine! I'll just do it all myself and see if I need YOU!" {have you ever said something like that to God?}

But what did He ask me, this week? Stay here and keep watch with me. Stay awake? Watch? And I have fallen asleep - asleep to His sorrow. Asleep to the moment when He is betrayed. Asleep to His prayers. Asleep to the glory He wins for us.

I hear Him ask me, stay awake. Do not wait until Easter morning to rise and make your way to the empty tomb. For it is the instrument of shameful death that is to us the means of everlasting life. Before the tomb is the Cross. And the glory is in the Cross.

May the Lord our God, in His merciful compassion, find us awake with Him this week.

Pray with me, from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer:

O God, by the passion of thy blessed Son didst make an 
instrument of shameful death to be unto us the means of life: 
Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly 
suffer shame and loss for the sake of thy Son our Savior Jesus 
Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, 
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


Love,
Hilary

The Way of Life and Peace (for Monday in Holy Week)

The Cross, I know, is the way of life. At least, I tell myself I know this on the days when the daffodils bob their sun-speckled heads in the breeze, when the sky is a laughing blue, when my skirt rustles as I walk, reminding me that I am becoming a grownup, becoming a woman, becoming good things.

But can I say, The Cross is the way of Life on the bad days? The storm-cloud days, when my work looms larger than my mind seems capable of handling, when I snap at my siblings, judge my friends, sulk and mope at being "misunderstood", and when there is an ache running from the base of my skull through my shoulders I just can't shake? Are those the moments when I say, in the words of Marcus Aurelius, "To bear this worthily is good fortune."? When I remind myself, "He said pick up your cross and follow me. So let's go."

I'm learning to. Far more than Hilary in 2008, who ran to and from the Cross like a child who can't decide if she needs to hold tight to Mom's hand or if Mom is the opponent, the withholder. In 2009, I was slightly older, very slightly wiser, seeing the Cross for the first time as the place I went, not where "the family" went. In 2010 (last year), I was weak and knew it, tired from the weight of self-judgment, tired from the desire to achieve and prove myself... and I knew somehow that I had to take it to the Cross.

And now it is 2011. I've started trying to spend some time every day in "the quiet place." The one where all the critical lines of my face dissolve. The place where I leave the storm- crawl out from beneath my own fear and anguish, face flushed from the howling wind. Where my whole body listens. Where I am finally, utterly still. Where my heart beats out prayer. Where I meet Peace.

And so I know that the Cross is the way of life. But it is this year, with the sadnesses, large and small, and the departures, the joys and the laughter - this year that tells me, this is also the way of Peace. This is the road to the quiet place, is itself the quiet place.

I whisper "thank you" for reminding me that this week is the way of Peace. That an extra ten minutes in the good real words of the slim Manual of Occasional Prayers Julie gave my 2008 year old self is food for my hunger. That I can breathe the Jesus prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner like I breathe air.

For His hand at my back propelling me forward, even as I turn back and yearn for some stormy weather, yearn for a dramatic problem (you just won't believe what happened to me!), for attention, for reassurance, for the orbit of the world to collapse into me. It is 2011, years after the first few moments where I put my fingers on the trembling heartbeat of the world, put my hands in His side, all doubting and fearful... and behold, I recognize the way of life and peace. 


Now, I pray, O Lord, help me to walk in it.

Pray with me (from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer):

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but
first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he 
was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way 
of the cross, may find it none other that the way of life and 
peace; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who 
liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, 
for ever and ever. Amen


Love,
Hilary

He Draws the Whole World to Himself (A Reflection on Palm Sunday)

Palm Sunday has always been among my very favorite Sundays in the liturgical calendar. The Church bleeds red cloth and banners, the congregation holds soft and fleshy green palm branches aloft as voices, in the shocking harmony of voices, sing Hosannas to the King of kings. And I, small in my paisley blue dress that I wore for high school graduation, shiver slightly from the reality of it all. That this, this, marks the beginning of the mighty acts in history that change the world forever.

This week I've been trying to wrap and warp my mind around the reality that Jesus Christ is crucified. I skim over this part of the story so that I can get to the glorious Resurrection and Ascension. I want to (in my usual Hilary way) skip the journey to get to the destination.

But I remember on this blog that during Advent I talked about how God loves to shatter paradox with truth. He makes the weakest the wisest. He makes an event empty of power the source of all life. He marries homesickness to joy. He makes a symbol of shame the symbol of victory.

And so I must not avoid paradoxes this week as the strong arms of Jesus pick me up and set my face with His toward Golgatha. That place is the place of paradox: where all my beautiful words and their neat definitions, all their merit, they fall down at the Word crucified.

The journey to the Cross in Lent this year means letting my skinned knees and aching soul lead me, instead of my mind, my logic, my rhetoric. It's weakness that will guide my feet, and heartache that will show me my place at the foot of the Cross.

And what is the meaning of all of this? I wonder as I listen to the priest pray fervently over the bread and the wine, pray for a transformation of those elements like the transformation of the whole world.

The priest prays, "Through Jesus Christ our Lord. For our sins he was lifted high upon the cross, that he might draw the whole world to himself, and, by his suffering and death, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who put their trust in him."

He draws the world to himself. There, in the place of abandonment. There, on the outskirts of the city. There, when with a great cry he gives up his spirit - there is the World, drawn to Him by the mystery of power made perfect in weakness.

He draws the world to himself. In the outstretched arms is the tightest embrace. In the heaving chest is the heartbeat of the world. In Him is the only life.

He draws the world to himself. This past Thursday I recited John 1.1-34 in French. The part that always catches in my throat reads like this: Elle était dans le monde, et le monde a été fait par elle, et le monde ne l'a point connue.

The French have two words for "know" - savoir and connaître. Much has been made in my language education about these two. You use "savoir" when you talk about facts, things that you know about something, idea. "Je le sais bien" (I know it well). But you "connaître" a person. Je ne le connais pas (I do not know them) is a phrase for not know the person themselves, the soul, the heart, the mind...

Le monde ne l'a point connue. The world did not know the Word. The world did not know Jesus. Not something about Jesus. Not facts. Not even concepts or ideas about who he was or what he was going to do. But they did not know him. He who draws the world to himself comes into the world and is not recognized. He is not known. Je ne le connais pas. He draws the world, who does not know him, into himself, the world who rejects him into the embrace of that Cross.

Today let us fix our eyes on the Cross, where Jesus draws the world to himself.

Let us pray (from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer for Palm Sunday):
Almighty and everliving God, who, of thy tender love
towards mankind, hast sent thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ
to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the
cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his
great humility: Mercifully grant that we may both follow the
example of his patience, and also be make partakers of his
resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who
liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God,
for ever and ever. Amen.


Love,
Hilary